In this UK Column News special, Mike Robinson speaks to Vanessa Beeley about Syria’s “first responder” group, the White Helmets who are being pushed forward for nomination for a Nobel Peace Prize. Do they deserve it? […]

Conspiracy theory website illuminatiRex lists the diamond sign as number one out of a top-ten of illuminati signs, with Mrs Merkel given her own section for doing it in reverse, in what it describes as the Merkel Raute. […]

“Gore Vidal’s Gore Vidal” (Originally broadcast 9th October 1995 on BBC1) Autobiography of the late Gore Vidal, looking at the life of one of America’s leading literary figures who for years entranced and enraged the US with his outspoken views, novels and essays. This programme follows him around the scenes of his youth. […]

The 79th Airmboile was the furthest advanced in the ‘Southern Cauldron’ battle, it’s remnants walked across the Russian border last week. It was a regular Ukraine Army Brigade listed on Wikipedia as being under ‘direct subordination’ to Land Forces Command. […]

Doubt if many were even aware there were three complete regular Ukrainian Army Brigades, two independent Regiments and a Regiment of Border Guards that had been cut-off without supplies and surrounded along a long finger against the Russian Border for the last month. There certainly has been no coverage beyond one piece by VICE news of frantic parents in Kiev protesting after calls from their surrounded soldier-sons. […]

(CBS News) The Square and Compasses are among the traditional tools of stonemasons. They also form the symbol of a group that has been misunderstood and even maligned for many centuries. This morning, Mo Rocca takes us inside. […]

We were lucky and excited to collaborate on our crossword doodle with Merl Reagle, one of the best and most well-known crossword constructors working today. Merl worked with Google engineer/crossword enthusiast, Tom Tabanao, to craft our puzzle grid and write all the clues. Merl’s knowledge of the puzzle world—and perspective on crosswords in particular—is considerable. We thoroughly enjoyed the wit and humor he brought to the whole endeavor. Here are Merl’s thoughts on the history of the crossword puzzle. -Ed.

First, it was a huge honor to be asked to do this. Many, many thanks to Tom Tabanao for pulling me in and shepherding the project through.

Second, it was a great opportunity to bring Arthur Wynne’s name into the public spotlight. He never made any money off the crossword, but he made tens of millions of puzzle fans around the world very happy. The fact that the first word across in the first-ever crossword was FUN is very appropriate, too. Crossword puzzles are indeed supposed to be fun—brainy fun, but fun nonetheless. The first puzzle also contained the word DOH, clued as “fiber of the gomuti […]

Inspired by former Mizzou linebacker and current boxer Ryan Coyne’s acrimonious business relationship with Don King, St. Louis’s River Front Times recently caught up with the American legend and Prince Hall Freemason, insofar as you can catch up with someone that refuses to talk to you. As it turns out, Don King is as crazy, exploitative and intractable as ever, and though his boxing empire is crumbling, he’s still pretty good at ruining lives for an octogenarian.

Boxing is the rare sport where a manager or promoter can make money by signing clients to onerous contracts and then ignoring them for months, sometimes years at a time. King perfected the art of playing fighters off against each other and waiting until they were desperate for any kind of pay-out, and throughout the piece, one is struck at how effective a sleazeball he is–con men don’t achieve world renown without a clever approach to ripping people off. John McCain introduced a bill in the Senate essentially designed to stop Don King. It passed, became law, and failed to stop Don King.

Phone-hacking scandal likely marks end of media baron’s control of British politics Doug Saunders – London

For decades, the tabloid newspapers of Britain have determined the political fates of governments left and right and held politicians hostage by threatening to expose their personal lives. It is an awkward and needy relationship, probably the last of its kind in the Western world, that seemed to come crashing to a halt as the House of Commons turned for the first time against the country’s most powerful media mogul.

It was as if a generation of political shame and anxiety exploded in a great catharsis of outrage and vengeance, with MP after MP rising on Wednesday to denounce magnate Rupert Murdoch and his control over their destinies. Tory MP Zac Goldsmith said that the Australian media baron “has systematically corrupted the police and in my view has gelded this Parliament, to our shame.”

It began as an emergency debate, called by the opposition Labour Party after it was revealed this week that the News of the World, a Sunday tabloid, had repeatedly broken into the mobile phone voicemail accounts of a […]

The Archbishop of Lisbon, Cardinal José da Cruz Policarpo, never ceases to amaze. In an interview last summer with the monthly magazine “Ordem dos Advogados” in which he spoke about female priesthood, he aired his views once again, this time on Freemasons. On this occasion, however, his views seem to be shared by the Vatican […]

Today the Guardian publishes for the first time what we believe is a unique photograph. It pierces the wall of secrecy which surrounds one of Britain’s most mysterious organisations by revealing a large gathering of London policemen wearing the white gloves, embroidered sashes and lambskin aprons of the worshipful order of freemasonry.

Somewhat lost among all the commentary about what the Pope had to say about homosexuality in that press conference, is his passing reference to another ‘lobby’ that may or may not be at work in the Vatican.

Meeting in Protestant Church is assessed differently - During the Protestant Association for Philosophical Questions (EZW) is the transfer of the church partly questionable, it defends the parish council

Cincinnati has long appeared to have a revolving door between the Masonic lodges and the Catholic Church. Having grown up there, I can recall discussions of various people who were both in Knights of Columbus and Masons, and rumors of parishes that were pagan experiments. People talk, and that sort of talk happened way before […]

Potentially as damaging as the cost over-runs are the claims made by critics like military analyst Winslow Wheeler that the F-35 is a “virtual flying piano” that lacks agility and is grounded far too often for maintenance.

Earlier this year, Rorate Caeli ran a report on Bishop Luiz Demétrio Valentini, Bishop of the Diocese of Jales in Brazil giving an address at the 53rd anniversary of the Masonic Lodge "Colonel Balthazar" in Jales. (In the picture below, he is the one not wearing a tie.)

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